Your wedding day is often referred to as ‘the best day of your life’, but it often also turns out to be ‘the most expensive day of your life’ too! Not that this seems to be deterring anyone; while there has been a general decline in marriage in the UK, with an almost 50% decrease between the early 1990s and the late 2010s, marriage is still a very important institution and in 2022 there were 246,897 marriages in England and Wales.
But what kind of costs are we looking at? How much do you really need to save? And is there a way of cutting costs?
Brace yourselves, we’re going to take a look at the average cost of a UK wedding.
THE AVERAGE COST OF A UK WEDDING
The average cost of a wedding in 2025 is £20,822 but throw in an engagement ring and honeymoon and you’re looking at £26,583.
Let’s break that down a bit.
The venue and catering tend to be the biggest expense; roughly 25 – 50% of the total budget. Then you have photography costs (on average £1,452), flowers (average cost £1,132) and a wedding dress (average cost £1,515), which is before you take into account hair, make up, transport, accessories, rings and bridesmaids, as well as clothes and shoes for the men. And we haven’t even touched on the stag/hen do; the current trend to make a weekend of it, often abroad, has really ramped the cost up.
The average cost of wedding music for the reception is £1,102 and a marquee/tipi could cost over £4,000.
IT’S CHEAP UP NORTH
Couples in the North of England, Northern Ireland and Wales have the cheapest weddings, while couples in London and the South East spend more on their big day, which is to be expected given the higher cost of living in those parts of the country, however, London couples spend on average 42% more, which is a huge difference.
WHAT’S THE CHEAPEST TIME OF YEAR TO GET MARRIED?
September is the most expensive month of the year to get married, closely followed by the summer months – June and August. December is also popular, because everyone loves a winter wedding.
WHAT ABOUT DAYS OF THE WEEK?
Sundays are the new Saturday when it comes to weddings, with the average Sunday wedding costing on average £25,942. The cheapest day of the week to get married is a Monday, unsurprisingly, with the average Monday wedding costing £15,989, but what a way to beat those Monday morning blues!
SIZE MATTERS
Of course, the bigger the wedding, the higher the cost so couples wanting to cut costs by up to 55% could keep it small and invite fewer than 30 guests. Kiera Knightley had just 11 people at her wedding, and 50 people at the reception. At the other end of the scale, if you’ve always wanted a big bash, having 150 plus guests boosts the average price up to a whopping £36,832.
HOW TO KEEP COSTS DOWN
A survey by Hitched showed that in 2023 59% of couples went over budget, but there are ways to stay within your budget and even cut costs, whether that’s choosing a less popular date so that the venue is cheaper (Friday 13th is never quite as popular), saving money by using DIY decorations and invitations, having your reception in your back garden or wearing a pre-loved dress. It’s easy to get carried away when arranging your wedding, we’re constantly bombarded with dream weddings on social media, so it helps to have a realistic plan of what you both want – and what you can afford – and stick to it without getting carried away. Does anyone really need a penguin as a ring bearer?
WHO PAYS?
This is often a delicate topic; traditionally the bride’s family paid for the whole wedding, but this custom has its roots in the days when the groom’s family received a dowry payment from the bride’s family in the form of money, land, property or livestock. Things have since moved on and nobody is expecting the bride’s father to hand over a couple of cows and the family silver once you announce your engagement.
Couples often live together before marrying or may have other financial priorities such as saving up for the deposit on a house, so the average age for couples getting married has increased; the average age for men is now 39.7, and for women it’s 37.3. Having said this, the Hitched survey showed that while a third of couples paid for the wedding themselves, 70% received financial help from friends and family.
Weddings are already fraught with emotion, and nothing adds to the stress more than worries about the financial side of things. Often, when couples are planning a wedding and drawing up a budget, wedding insurance isn’t top of the list, but while we all expect everything to go smoothly, have you thought about what you’d do if the unexpected were to happen?
A huge amount of time and effort and emotion goes into planning a wedding, so wouldn’t it be nice to know you could be covered if things don’t go to plan? The Insurance Emporium has 6 different policy types to choose from, all of which can be tweaked with some additional optional benefits, so take a look and get a free, no-strings quote before you tie the knot.
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